APTOS -- Funding problems that for years sidelined plans to build a community park in the Seacliff Village of Aptos are back on track, thanks to more than $600,000 in recently obtained grants.

As envisioned, the oceanview McGregor Neighborhood Park, at the corner of Sea Ridge Road and McGregor Drive, will be home to an amphitheater, picnic area, shade structures, playground, skate areas and restrooms. The perimeter will be lined with drought-tolerant plants, and the 15,000-square-foot centerpiece will be filled with drought-tolerant turf.

Plans to build the park have been on the drawing board since 2007, when the county purchased the 1.25-acre site from South County Housing Corp., the nonprofit developer behind the Canterbury Park housing project adjacent to the park.

The county's Board of Supervisors approved the park's conceptual master plan in 2008. In 2009, officials started preparing design documents. But lack of funding halted that work until just recently, when the county secured $643,000 in grants and hired an architectural firm to finish the design and construction of the first phase of the project, said Bob Olson, a parks planner.

But the last community meeting on the project was held almost three years ago, and county officials want "to update residents on where we are," Olson said. At a meeting Wednesday evening in the Seacliff Highlands Community Room, a representative from the architectural firm, Santa Cruz-based SSA Landscape Architects, will present a rendering of what amenities might be included in the first phase of the project. A development permit likely will be secured next year, with construction possibly starting in mid-2014, Olson said.

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During the community meetings in 2008, ahead of the master plan's approval, "there was total (community) support, so we feel really good about what we have right now," he said.

Once built, McGregor Park will sit adjacent to the Canterbury Park development, an affordable housing development with 19 two-, three- and four-bedroom town homes for sale. Crews broke ground in July, and residents should be able to start moving in over the spring, according to Debra Frey, owner of Intero Real Estate Services.

"We're all very excited that the project is moving forward," she said, adding it's "been a long haul."

Construction originally was slated to begin in fall 2011, but it was a "complex project with a lot of players," Dennis Lalor, president of South County Housing, said in an interview earlier this year.

Prices range from $299,000 to $360,000, and Frey said several still are available.